Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:55: Books and quotes on critical thinking

00:08:16: Learning by doing versus learning by explaining

00:10:48: Cognitive foraging

00:12:28: Constraints

00:15:01: Problem statements

00:19:42: Having the right people for critical thinking

00:25:38: Integrative thinking

00:35:00: Idea for action: harnessing mental models

00:36:55: Idea for action: practise writing problem statements

00:38:06: Recommendations for readership

00:42:04: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ups and downs and ins and outs of a Squiggly Career, and share insights, ideas and things that you can take action with, so you can take back a bit of control of what might be going on for you at work right now.  And we always find that it is quite cathartic for both Sarah and I too, because a lot of these topics that we talk to you about are things that we are going through as well.

Sarah Ellis: So, today is part two of our Squiggly Soft Skills series, very hard to say, but hopefully it's proving useful so far.  We covered Originality last week, today we'll be talking about Critical Thinking, and then we're going to move onto Social Influence, mainly because I think Helen and I are really intrigued about what that is, we don't really understand it, and Stress Tolerance. 

So, those are the four skills that we're going to be covering.  And we were inspired by the World Economic Forum of soft skills that they thought were going to be particularly useful by 2025, so we've used that as a bit of an anchor. Similar to the series we did back in the summer in 2022, each week we both read a different book about the topic, and then we don't talk to each other before it, we do make sure we've not read the same book, which very nearly happened last week, which shows how organised/disorganised we are, and as we go through the podcast, we quickly talk about a quote, so one quote that's really stood out to us from the book; we talk about three things that we've learnt, so some insights that we want to share with you, so that you get a feel for whether it might be an interesting thing for you to read or dive a bit deeper into; we'll then talk about an action that you can take if you want to increase your Critical Thinking, as we'll be talking about today; and then finish with who should read this book, is it a book for everyone, is it a book for some people? I always feel you get a bit of a feel and a flavour for our thoughts on the book and how much we enjoyed it as we go through as well, as a bit of a bonus.  So, Helen, what was your book of choice for critical thinking?

Helen Tupper: Well, I picked up a book that I already had on my shelf, because you know like book guilt --

Sarah Ellis: Efficient!

Helen Tupper: Well, when I'm like, "Oh, let's buy a new book", and I'm like, "Yeah, but I have quite a lot that I've not read yet", and so I must have ordered the book, Framers, at some point last year, subtitle: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil.  It's all basically about how you can harness the frames that you use to look at the world and at work to make better decisions.  I thought, in the context of critical thinking, how you choose frames would be a really helpful thing to learn a bit more about.  So, that was my choice; what did you choose?

Sarah Ellis: So, I've chosen the HBR Guide to Critical Thinking, so does what it says on the tin; very straight down the line for this choice!  And slight disclaimer, we did go back and forth as to whether we should choose it because of this, but we are in that book.  So, one of the articles that we wrote about learning and how to make development part of your day-to-day has sort of been edited, slightly reworked and is part of that critical thinking book.  But I'm not going to talk about that today, because we've done a podcast on it before, and actually I think there are other articles that are much more focused on critical thinking that we're going to emphasise and spend a bit more time exploring. The other thing, which I also hope is not annoying, is the book isn't out until I think it's mid-February, but you can pre-order it now, so the links will all be in the show notes for the podcast, and hopefully it's not too long to wait, and we felt like it was such a specific read for the skill, it felt like a shame not to include it, and we were obviously lucky that we could read it a little bit early.  So, I feel like we've had a little bit of sneak preview; one of the advantages of the Squiggly Careers podcast!

Helen Tupper: So, we wanted to start with the quotes that have stood out for us in reading the book, and maybe I'll go first with this.  I think this quote that I'm going to say, it stood out for me, not because I think it's the world's most amazing and inspiring quote, but I think it actually explains what framing is in a really simple, practical way, because I don't think it's something we talk about all the time, this idea of framing. 

So, the quote that I captured was, "The frames we employ affect the options that we see, the decisions that we make and the results that we attain.  By being better at framing, we get to better outcomes".  So, I thought it was quite a good explanation and a justification of why we might want to do this. Then, there's a nice, little example just to bring it to life, of framing, which is wearing masks.  So, in the pandemic, obviously all around the world we had to wear masks, and it talks about how people framed the pandemic, and mask-wearing sort of informed how they felt about it. 

So for example if, when you looked at masks, your frame was all around your freedom and personal choice, then you would see wearing a mask as a bad thing, because you would see it as taking away personal choice on masks because you were being forced to wear it; whereas, if your frame was more about health, you would see wearing a mask as a good thing, because you would think that wearing a mask reduces the amount of germs that you were sharing. It basically says that, depending on what frame you use, or the language I would probably use is, "What lens you look through", depending on your lens or your frame can very much affect your decision.  So, if you are only looking at your world of work through one lens, you're probably only making one type of decision about your development, for example.  Whereas, if you get better at seeing your work through lots of different lenses, you can see different perspectives and it might give you more options and hopefully help you get to better decisions.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that all made sense to me.

Helen Tupper: Good, I'm glad!

Sarah Ellis: That was helpful.  One of the quotes I pulled out and actually haven't chosen, I had also gone down the definition route of, "How do we define critical thinking?" which I probably will still come back to.  But I did pick out a slightly different quote, which I think is probably quite an appealing one for lots of us.  So, the HBR Guide to Critical Thinking has lots of authors, so I will do my best to credit everybody as we go through, because there must be, I don't know, 15, 20 different people who've contributed in some way. This is from a guy called Srini Pillay and he says, "Simply using your brain for crossing items off your to-do list is a poor use of a very sophisticated machine".

Helen Tupper: I like this!

Sarah Ellis: I did.  And it just really stood out to me, as one of the things as I was going through with critical thinking is, I don't think it's an easy skill.  And actually, I went back and re-read a couple of the chapters.  Each chapter is sort of an article in its own right; it's very pick-uppable and put-downable in, as in you could just read about integrated thinking, which I'm going to talk about later, and then you could come back to it. 

But it's not so simplistic that you just think straightaway, I know exactly what to do with that.  I think you have to spend some time with it, you have to keep coming back to it. Almost part of the argument, I think, for critical thinking is going, "We've got the brains to do this, we've all got the brains to do this, and we've got to almost choose to use them in this way, and not let split attention and distraction and multitasking and pace, which we've all got very used to and/or addicted to, get in the way of critical thinking, because those things are all very detrimental.  If you want to be better at critical thinking, essentially you've got to make some choices as well, I think, about how quickly you do things and how present you want to be and how mindful you are.

Helen Tupper: That's very aligned with the premise of framers as well, because that idea that it's human advantage, it says that there's lots of stuff that technology can do; but if you can develop this skill of critical thinking, it's a very unique human skill that can give you advantage if you have it.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I got to the same conclusion actually reading it as well.  So, do you want to go first; what were your three insights; what can we learn; how can we be better framers? Helen Tupper: Well, I don't know how useful my insights will be.  I was going through all my notes and it was just a collection of stuff I captured and I was like, "Is this useful for people?"  I don't know.  But this is what I wrote down, my three things.

Sarah Ellis: I feel like you've really framed that, by the way, talking about framing.  I'm like, "She's framed us to go, 'I'm not sure this is that useful'", so are you priming us there to be, "Oh, no, it is actually really useful"; is she actually using one of the techniques in the book?

Helen Tupper: I mean, you're totally overthinking it!  No, I literally just went through my notes and was like, "This is a random collection of stuff that I decided to write down!"  But here's my random collection of stuff. So, the first one, I wrote down something about learning by doing versus learning by explaining.  So in the book, they talk about that we can learn a lot more and we get better at the work that we do when we explain why and how we're doing it, so you don't just do it on autopilot.  An example of this for me, I was trying to think about what this would look like in my work. 

So, every week, I review all the social media copy and posts that Amazing If put out on lots of different platforms.  And a lot of the time, I just do that; I just do it on autopilot as a task to be done and I get it done. But if I took five minutes and I explained why I did it and why I did it in a certain way, then I might be able to understand more about the frames that I'm using.  Okay, so the frame that I'm using is "efficiency", because I'm trying to get it done that way.  What if I framed it with "impact"; would I do it differently?  And there's a quote that illustrates this.  It says, "As humans explain the world using frames, they learn more about the world they're explaining and generate deeper and more accurate insights". So, when you explain why you're working in that way, you can unlock some of the frames you're using, if that makes sense, which can then help you to think, "Well, if I took on a different frame, would I do this in a different way?"  I just thought, it's not a nice, neat learning, but it did make me stop and think.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think that also might be useful to explain to other people why you're approaching something in a certain way.  You know often, if you're just on the receiving end of something, so let's say you were doing a bit of work and I just see it happen but I'm not part of the process, if you explained to me, "I appreciate the frame I'm using at the moment is efficiency", and then you and I have a conversation about, "Well, what would happen if you used a different frame; or is that the right frame?"  And then what we might decide is, "Yeah, that's absolutely the right frame".  But then I've got a better understanding as well. Also, that idea of you're including people in your approach, rather than keeping knowledge to yourself, and I think I've spotted a few examples recently where I'm like, "I'm going to have to take the time to explain how I would do this", and it's definitely time-consuming and often easier to not do that, but I think you probably know more and then other people learn more, if you get good at explaining the why and the how.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and I guess the shortcut is, "Name the frame"; explain it so that you can name the frame, and that makes it easier to maybe try a different one on.  So, yeah, it turns out maybe that was useful, that was a useful thing I wrote down! The second thing I wrote down, I just captured because I loved the term, and I sent it to you on WhatsApp.  I just captured this one bit of the book that I love.  It was the term, "cognitive foraging", and I just like this idea.  So basically, I think this is just a different word for curiosity.  This idea of cognitive foraging means learning from different people and different places, so you're acquiring lots of new knowledge. Again, the quote that I captured about this cognitive foraging term, aka curiosity, is, "By constantly looking, we are better at seeing", and I just thought that was just a really nice -- there was a thing that I was going to save and come back to quite a lot, that idea of constantly looking makes you better at seeing, just resonated with me quite a lot.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that's nice.  I can imagine that that would go down differently in different organisations.  I've worked in some organisations where I think cognitive foraging would not go down well; people who are very straightforward and like to be simplistic.  Then, I've worked in other organisations who I think would absolutely love that; maybe very creative organisations are like, "Yes, I'd love to do some cognitive foraging". I suspect that's quite a divisive term, but your point in terms of why would you be doing that and how that's then helpful in terms of critical thinking, because curiosity definitely came up in the HBR Guide to Critical Thinking as well, more than I had expected and imagined.  And I was even saying to a group today that I was doing a workshop for, sometimes I don't think I would have necessarily made the connection between curiosity and critical thinking, but I definitely do now.  So, that's interesting how we both, reading very, very different things, got to that same connection.

Helen Tupper: My last one is about constraints, which we've talked about before, the power of constraints.  You often think that constraints are quite limiting, but in terms of challenging your thinking, constraints can be really helpful, they come up a lot when you're looking at innovation.  But I think it was the example that I loved, when they were talking about constraints.  Do you know the book, Green Eggs and Ham?

Sarah Ellis: Yes, I have to read that quite frequently to my 5-year-old.  And do you know what, I've come round to it.  Initially, I was not a fan.

Helen Tupper: This is the third book review that no one was expecting!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it really is!  I was like, "I am not up for this book", but Max was quite enjoying it, my little boy, and he asked for it a few times, and I'm so keen for him to like reading because I like reading basically.  I was like, "Okay, yeah, we'll do that one again".  And now I've just found my rhythm with it, because it is a very rhythmic book.  So, yeah, I do know that book.

Helen Tupper: Okay, so I'm going to connect the dots for you between constraints and this book, Green Eggs and Ham.  So, Zeuss, because it's written by Dr Zeuss, I don't know what his first name is, it's just Dr Zeuss and the Green Eggs and Ham book!  But anyway, Zeuss, his publisher bet him that he couldn't write a book with just 50 different words of 1 syllable each.  So, he gave him this constraint of basically 50 words, 1 syllable, and said, "Bet you can't do it".  He took that constraint and wrote the book, Green Eggs and Ham, which is full of these words, "Sam I am", this will all resonate with anyone who's read that book, and he created one of the bestselling children's books of all time. So, it was just this idea that with a constraint, so almost this frame of simplicity and restriction, in terms of what you could do, led to a whole new way of him thinking about it.  Now, I kind of go, "What's that got to do with critical thinking?" but I think the idea is, sometimes when you take a constraint and you limit your options -- so, it's hard to think critically when the world is very confusing, and sometimes you need to create some simplicity so that you can think more critically about a situation. It just made me think, if you're overwhelmed, let's say you've got a career decision to make and it feels really overwhelming, maybe think about some constraints that you could apply to it that could just narrow down your options and help you to get a bit more critical.  That was where I got to, but I also just like the example, because I know the book very well.

Sarah Ellis: And actually, when I talk about integrated thinking, I think that will challenge one of the things that you've just said, and reinforce one thing.  So, I think that will be quite interesting.  So, shall I go through my three insights?

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: So, the first one is a very practical one, and this does actually also link to the action that I would suggest everybody has a go at, because I actually did have a go at this today and found I could do it quite quickly.  So as I said, some of the things on critical thinking take a bit of practice and I've re-read some of the chapters; but one of the ideas for action, which is from David Markowitz, is this idea of problem statements.  If you want to get better at critical thinking, practise writing problem statements, particularly practise writing problem statements almost, to use your language, with different frames of reference.  So, I didn't know we were going to connect those dots, but actually that's exactly what he's suggesting you do. For example, let's imagine you're really busy and you're going to write some problem statements about, you feel like you're too busy, you're too overwhelmed.  So, you could write a problem statement that sounded like, "I've got too much work and not enough time", and that's a very individual frame, it's like, "I have got too much work and I have not got enough time". 

That's a problem statement. You could write a problem statement more from a cultural perspective, which might sound more like, "How do we get better at improving our prioritising process?"  So, that's less about me, that's more about us, that's more about ways of working, that's more of a cultural lens on that problem.  Or, it could be more about maybe, you're zooming out I guess even further, an organisation problem statement which is, "How can we understand what is the work that we do that has the most positive impact?" None of those problem statements are wrong, but you would solve each of those problem statements with very different solutions, so that's the point.  So, by actually doing multiple problem statements and then almost thinking either for yourself or in a team or in a group, which one of those problem statements, specifically choosing, are we starting with?  Then you make sure you're solving for the right thing, because you know otherwise you get to that thing of, "Well, we've solved the problem, but have we solved the right problem?" Actually, you might then say, "This does feel like a really individual problem, because actually maybe no one else in the team feels the same", or "Actually, maybe this organisation's very good at prioritising", or maybe, "We're really clear what has the most positive impact, but for some reason I'm struggling a little bit with how much work I've got to do and not enough time".  So, that is the right problem statement to start with. One of the things that they talk about is, so often that part gets missed or it's done too quickly, and it's almost the same as when you and I used to work in marketing; if you don't write a good brief, you don't get to good work.  I feel like, if you want to do really good, quality, critical thinking, you need a very good problem statement and you need to make sure that you've not done that too quickly, but also you've not only looked at it through one frame. I read that chapter, that article, about problem statements and doing the different perspectives, and could then have a go at that quite quickly.  And I just thought, I can imagine that would be useful in lots of different situations.

Helen Tupper: It reminds me of when I've done jobs before and I've not really known what I'm doing, and I couldn't really rely on my insight and experience to add value, so I'll be really specific about this, when I joined Microsoft and I had no idea what my job was, I couldn't really give anyone any answers.  So, what I started to get good at was asking questions because that was the way that I could add value to a room. 

And I would often ask people, "What is the problem we're trying to solve?" because I would find very much in the large corporations that I worked in, that sometimes you have so many meetings and so much discussion that sometimes, people don't know what they're talking about any more, in the nicest possible sense, like, "Why are we here?"! So, just taking a bit of time out to ask that, "What is the problem we're trying to solve?" is really interesting.  And what's even better is when you don't do it in group discussions, so when you get people to write it down, "What is the problem we're trying to solve?" and then look at their answers, you realise that everyone thinks they're trying to solve a different problem.  It's quite good, I think, midway through projects and stuff to do something like that, and then almost to hold the problems up and be like, "Okay, there's a bit of variation here, so which is the one we want to move forward with?"

Sarah Ellis: I can't remember if it was this article or one of the others, but they gave that as an example, as an exercise; if you're working on something with people, make sure that that problem statement doesn't get lost, and almost do that test of get everybody to write it down and people often have some quite important differences, even if they're along the right lines, that actually can be really helpful.  So actually, that's another kind of practical action that you could take. So, my second insight was about having the right people in the room/Zoom for critical thinking, creating the conditions for critical thinking, and here I'm merging a few of the different articles that I read.  So, there was one by a lady called Cheryl Einhorn, who talks about your problem-solving profiles. 

We all love a profile, don't we, because it's quite appealing to be, "Oh, yes, I'm that one versus that one"; even though actually in lots of ways I'm quite anti them, I still found myself quite drawn to reading this article, partly because I was working out what you are and what I am. She describes these different profiles: listener, detective, visionary, thinker and adventurer, and you can obviously have a bit of an accumulation of a few different profiles.  But it's really interesting reading it, because you are definitely an adventure problem-solver, so that means you're optimistic, you've got a bias for action, you always want to move at pace.  Then, I have a thinker profile, so I want time to think, I like to get different people's points of view on the problem, I don't want to be forced into one answer, I like exploring options.

It is quite helpful perhaps to just think about what problem-solving profiles do you have, which one are you, and what do you have within your team, because actually it is a really good thing to have complementary styles.  You don't want everybody who's an adventurer, because you'd probably have quite a lot of fun, to be honest; when you read it, I'm like, "They're probably having fun together", but they could climb the wrong mountain, essentially.  And you don't want just thinkers, because then they'd never climb any mountain, because they'd never make a decision about which was the right mountain to climb.

It actually made me think from a team perspective, I was like, "It would be really interesting for us all to dive a bit deeper into that", because I'd not come across those before, and just think about what are our problem-solving profiles.  But more generally, there are lots of examples in the different articles about how actually one of the things you can do, if you want to be a better critical thinker, is consider who are you inviting into your conversations.  People who are often particularly useful are people who understand your world, but who are not in it. There's one example of, I think they were talking about a team that were coming up with an innovation framework, and this guy invited his executive assistant to contribute to the conversation.  What she basically said was, "I've been in this organisation for 15 years, you've done three innovation frameworks before, none of them have ever worked, no one ever likes them, they're just basically the latest shiny object.  I'm not sure that's what people need, to be honest".  He said, what was so funny is they were solving the wrong problem, so they were thinking they had to come up with an innovation framework, whereas actually it was a completely different thing they needed to be spending their time on.  So, she was right because she understood the organisation, but she wasn't in that team day-to-day. Also, you want people who can be open and honest, so they actually make the explicit link to psychological safety. 

So, if that lady had been scared of her boss or those people, she's not going to say those things, and she obviously felt like she could do that.  They actually mentioned, "You've got to be able to get people who can speak truth to different kinds of power".  Then finally, those people's job is not to come up with solutions to the problems; those people's job is to give input.  So, as we've described it before, it reminded me of when we've talked about challenge and build.  So, if you want to get better at critical thinking, how often are you inviting challenge and build on your ideas, on your pieces of work; are you creating the conditions or an environment where you can do that? Then, to your point, one of the definite themes or threads that runs through critical thinking is, your job is more to ask questions, get really good at asking open questions, "what if" questions, "What might we be missing?  Helen, I'd really appreciate your perspective on that"; what are the voices that you're not hearing.  So, I think something that almost challenged me a bit to think, you know often you think, "How can I get better at critical thinking?  That should all be about me and my skillset"; but actually, quite a big part of it is actually thinking about other people: are you getting other people's perspectives; who are you inviting into those conversations; and then are you asking really good questions; are you making sure that you're not expecting those people to solve your problems for you?  But that's how you get better at that sort of critical analysis; who is in part of that conversation is really important.

Helen Tupper: Listening to you, it reminds me a little bit of, you know Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats, and this idea that you're wearing these different hats?  I think I was just quickly having a look at them to remember them all.  There's a facts hat, a cautions one, a creativity, a feelings, a benefits and a process.  It's almost, giving people a different part to play means they'll put a different perspective into the conversation, and maybe doing it intentionally can really help, and avoid stuff like groupthink. The other think I thought was maybe, and often my context is large organisations, but maybe it's the same with small organisations too, but sometimes you get stuck in these silos where the marketing team doesn't talk to whatever team; I was thinking whether you could have a cross-functional critique. 

So, you're inviting someone from another function to do that challenge and build, and you're giving them that opportunity, and then you could do it for them.  I think it could be a really constructive way that you could invite this more critical thinking in, with these people with different insights and perspectives, and also tackle some of the potential organisational silos that arise often in big companies too.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and it so rarely happens.  I was just thinking about, how often was I part of those conversations?  Quite rarely really, because I think people get quite protectionist of their function, probably rightly so, because they've probably had experiences where if you're not like that, maybe you lose budget or things don't happen.  But I think if you want to be in that high-trust environment, that's exactly the sort of behaviour that you would expect to see.  That was really interesting, and there's lots more that you can dive into on that if you're interested in that. Then, my third insight, and I did hesitate about whether to include this, because this is not easy and this was the article that I read a couple of times, and they even finish the article by saying, "This is almost like a newer area of research". 

They were talking about the potential of it being taught in business schools, but I actually don't think it is at the moment, and it is this idea of integrative thinking.  It's written by somebody called Roger Martin.  So, I tried to then summarise some thoughts on integrative thinking that I hope might help everyone to at least get started with it, because I feel like I have got started.  That's me framing managing expectations! One of the things that Roger Martin talks about is essentially these leaders who seem to be incredibly successful and how they think differently.  They seem to be able to do this integrative thinking. 

And one of the features of this is that these leaders are very comfortable holding two opposing ideas in their heads at once, and having multiple hypotheses.  So, one of the things I've not talked about today is, one of the articles in the book is about "act like a scientist".  And the reason I've not is because we did a podcast on that last year, because it was a really good HBR article. If you follow the scientific process in a very purist way, you would have one hypothesis that you need to go away and test that hypothesis, you need to make sure you measure it, etc.  Whereas actually, what he's saying here is, people who are really good at having these opposing ideas and these multiple hypotheses, they're very, very open, and they start from an approach of, rather than the same again, they are motivated by shaping the world to make it better. 

So, rather than more of the same, they're very motivated by difference, or they're not constrained I guess by what has gone before.  So, that's sort of starting to describe maybe what it would feel like or look like. They are very good at questioning maybe obvious connections.  So, you know in organisations, people say, "But if we ever do this activity, then this thing happens", so almost like an "if, then", "If we put our prices up, then this thing always happens"?  What these people are not afraid to do is to ask "what if" questions, "Okay, well what if we tripled those prices; or, what if we stopped selling these things for a while?"  They'll almost ask potentially unreasonable questions, or unrealistic questions, because they're stress-testing some of the assumptions that exist in an organisation. 

They're very, very questioning, I would say, reading it. I think at times, that must feel quite confronting and challenging, because the people certainly that he's talked to, and it's hundreds, but are often in very, very senior positions.  So, they're digging in, they probably don't let stuff go.  I was trying to think as I was reading through it, thinking of one particular leader I worked for and I was like, "They were quite like this and they were brilliant", but at times I'm not always sure it felt brilliant.  But maybe if I had understood some of this a bit better, it actually might have helped me in terms of what they were trying to do.

What's interesting about these people, and this is counter to what you were talking about earlier maybe in terms of simplicity, is they're so good at critical thinking, they can see all these hypotheses, they can hold the whole problem and picture in their heads at once, and they enjoy and embrace the messiness, the complexity, and they don't feel constrained by, "I must choose an option", "We need to choose option A, B or C".  They'll be like, "There might be a D"; they'll come up with a Z; they'll be like, "Well, maybe it's something completely different".  They sort of have a confidence in actually, "Yes, this feels complicated and messy and there's loads of options and I don't need to simplify". You know we all search for simplicity?  I got a sense that these people potentially do the opposite, because these are not small problems, this is not the time for small problems; these are maybe big things that you're trying to solve.  And so oversimplifying something that's really complex wouldn't be the right thing to do, feeling like we should do what we've always done is not how you unlock new ideas and new opportunities. 

So, I found it less specific, in terms of going, "What am I now going to go away and do?"  I was still trying to get to some of those conclusions. Certainly asking "what if" questions, I think we can all do that, "What if that…?"; not being afraid to dive a bit deeper and to question assumptions, I think is definitely something we could all try; and not being afraid of the messiness and complexity.  I thought that was quite a good reminder that sometimes things are messy and complex, and that is okay.  And he describes them as sort of like architects, in that they don't see one room like, "I'm going to design a really nice bathroom and then I'm going to worry about a really nice kitchen", or whatever; they've sort of created a mental image, a mental model of it all, and they just hold it all at the same time. I was like, actually that bit quite appeals to me, because some of it I think is more naturally the way that I would work and I definitely don't oversimplify, that's not my problem, and I am quite happy with sometimes living with different options and messiness, and just feeling that confidence and that reassurance of, "I feel okay, I feel like we'll find our way".  So, some of it actually reading, I found reassuring, because some of the behaviours, maybe not all of them, I could recognise in myself.  How you go away and then get lots better at it, it's probably the one article I read in the book, as I said they're a series of a collection of articles, where I thought, "I think I'm going to go away and read this book".  So, the guy's actually written a book on, I think it was called something like Thinking Differently, and I thought, "This is interesting, I want to dive a bit deeper".

Helen Tupper: I am glad that you got to that conclusion, because actually listening to you, I saw a lot of you in that, because I do think when Sarah and I are talking, I'll be like, "Where is our business going; what do we want to be by 2025?" and Sarah will often try to hold the space a bit more and say, "We could be lots of different things, why do we need to decide now?"  I had two insights in listening to you: one, it is really valuable, if you are an integrative thinker, as I've put that hat on you now, if you are that, it's really useful to spend time with people like Sarah, because sometimes when I feel like I'm closing down an option too quickly, or trying to oversimplify something, just spending time with someone like Sarah can help you to stay a bit more open for longer. 

So, I think maybe spot the people that might have some of the characteristics Sarah has talked about, and think about how you could spend time with them. But then, I also think for integrative thinkers, there is a bit of self-awareness that you need, which is that not everybody thinks like you and that actually, it can be a little bit uncomfortable for other people to sit with that ambiguity.  People do like clarity, so I think there is a point at which you have to recognise that this is an individual skill that you've got that definitely has value, but that sometimes you might need to create those constraints for other people, so that they can work in a way that also works for them.

Sarah Ellis: It probably means, if you're good at it, you've got those critical thinking skills, or maybe you can get even better at those critical thinking skills.  I think it's also about recognising where to apply those skills, you know like the application of those things, because I can see in myself sometimes where I might get it wrong is, you know not all problems are born equal; some problems do need to be simplified, you do need options and you do need to make a decision, and you don't need to do all of those things that I've just described.  And then, there are other times where actually that's incredibly useful.

So, there is something, and actually this isn't talked about, maybe we're building on it, who knows, I do think there's the adaptability that goes alongside it; because whether you're in a small organisation like we're in now, or in massive ones like we've been in before, you're doing very different things day-to-day.  So, I can't believe that approach is useful all day, every day.  And I think your point is a really good one as well about, you know like even I described I worked for someone who was even better at it than me, and I probably learnt a bit from that person; if I had understood it a bit better, I think I would have benefitted from it more. Like you said, I think I would have embraced -- this person, I would say, was even happier with the messiness, complexity, than I was.  And so, if I had known that's what we were doing, it was almost like, "This thing is important enough that it's okay for that", I think then it would have helped me to almost manage it a bit better and almost go with the flow a bit.  I think you've got to go with the flow when you're going through that process I described.  But if that's happening to you, rather than with you, I think that's probably a very different experience.

Helen Tupper: So, on to action, and what from our reading do we recommend that you could go away and do to support yourself with this skill of critical thinking?  Well, I'm going to go right to the back of my book, Framers, which there's a two-page section, so you have to read quite a lot to get to the action, and there's two pages at the end of it which is A Guide to Working With Frames, and they basically give you the stuff that you can go and do.  Part one of this is what I'm going to recommend, which is harnessing mental models.  

So, these are the kind of frames that we all use every day. It says basically, "Identify and inspect the assumptions in your mental models", so I think that is that point that we said earlier, like explain why you're doing something and just think about, "What frame am I using; and, is it the right frame?" so that's the point I mentioned earlier.  So, when you're making a decision, I would just think about, "What is the frame that I'm using?" and just be really like, name the frame, as we talked about earlier. Ask "why" and "how" questions so, "Why am I using this frame?  How would my decision be different if I used a different one", or like Sarah said, the "what if" question comes up in this book as well, "What if I used Sarah's frame?" or, "What if I used my manager's frame; what then?" and just basically try on a few different frames, and see what different decisions you would make.  And it says that, "When your views clash with somebody else's, try to characterise the way that they see the world".  So, if Sarah and I are having a bit of friction, then one thing that would be really useful is to think about the frame that Sarah's using, just so I can understand where she's coming from. So, I think name the frame, understand the frame that might be causing the friction, and use some of those "why, what ifs, [and] how could" questions, are just good ways, I think, to not just take things as they are, but maybe be able to see things a bit differently to make better decisions, which is what the framing thing's all about.

Sarah Ellis: I found that interesting and useful.

Helen Tupper: Good, I'm glad!

Sarah Ellis: Mine is the very simple one that I mentioned as part of the first insight, practise writing problem statements.  I think for any project, I think you could do this for your career, if you were trying to think about career change or promotion or what next; you could do this for team ways of working.  I think sometimes, even the word "problem" can intuitively and obviously feel negative.  But I think almost let go of this idea of a problem statement being, "It means we've got a problem"; really what you're defining in a problem statement is something that you want to improve, something you want to do better or get better at. I think don't be too binary in how you're defining problems, because I think then that might actually limit how often and how useful this would be.  When I think about problem statements, I can think most days, we're probably working on something where I can imagine writing some problem statements from different perspectives could be useful.  So, when you're thinking about having a go at doing this, don't start with, "What's a problem?" in a negative way; start with, "What do I want to change; what do I want to get better; how do we want to improve?" So, who do you think should read Framers, Helen?

Helen Tupper: Well, I think I would only recommend framers to somebody that wanted to get quite expert into framing, because I've worked quite hard I think to pull out stuff that you can do on a day-to-day basis at work, and I've had to read the whole book and pull that out, and it wasn't the easiest thing to do.  But I did enjoy reading about it at an academic level.  I mean, it talks about the pluralism of framing, and it talks about counterfactual arguments and causal effects.  And there's a whole section of correlation and causation!  So, if that sort of stuff --

Sarah Ellis: Which I still get confused about!

Helen Tupper: Exactly!  So, that sort of stuff, if that's what you get really interested in, then this book will really help you, because it basically dives very deeply into that.  But if you just go, "Yeah, I've got it, it's the lenses you look through the world and I need to try some different things on", then you've probably got enough from this podcast, I think. Sarah Ellis: And the HBR Guide to Critical Thinking, so the pros of that book are firstly, it's short.  It's short, it's very specific, and it does what it says on the tin, in terms of critical thinking.  It is a collection of articles, so rather than a book from start to finish that flows and is written by one author, and so I think that has pros and cons.  I think what I liked about the critical thinking one is then it's lots of different people approaching critical thinking with their area of expertise. For example, our contribution to that is about learning, making learning part of your day-to-day and how you can be more curious, which will help your critical thinking.  We're contributing the bit that we're really good at.  And then, Roger Martin is then talking about integrative thinking, that's the bit he's really good at.  So, I think I really enjoyed the variety of perspectives and people sharing different points of view on critical thinking.

The bit that perhaps is missing for me, and this is true I think of all the HBR Guides To, because this is not really what they're designed to do, there is nothing at the end where they then say, "Right, so we have distilled all of this together and really thought about the actions that you could take at work".  You have to do that work for yourself.  And in some of the articles, that's easier to do than others.  So, if you were thinking, "I want a list of ten things, ten ideas for action that's going to help me with my critical thinking", I think you would get there, and actually it wouldn't take you long to read the different articles, and as I say it's very easy to pick up and put down. But there are some I just read and I came away going, "That's interesting", but there's not necessarily the "so what"; then I think there's some that you read where you're like, "That's really interesting, I'm going to read it again", which I did; then there's some where you go, "That's interesting and I'm clear about what I might go away and do differently". 

So, there's a mix of tone and styles.  Some of the articles are only two pages long, some of them are more like eight. I think for anyone who wants to be more strategic, I hear that a lot from people, "How do I be more strategic?" I think it would be a really good book, because sometimes strategic feels quite vague and I think one way to be more strategic is to get better at critical thinking; anyone who wants to, as I said around problems, if your job is about change, I think it would be really useful.  I don't think you have to be a leader or manager to read the book, but quite a bit of the emphasis in some of the articles is on people in those kinds of roles, but I don't think it matters too much what role you're in. But I really recommend it and I've read quite a lot of the HBR Guides To.  I'm looking on my shelf behind me right now, I think I've got 11 or 12 of them, and I would say it's one of the better ones of that style of book that I've read, I think, in terms of I was thinking, "I'm going to keep coming back to this, I'm going to dive a bit deeper".  I can imagine getting it off the bookshelf, putting it as a permanent place on the bookshelf.  It's very good.

Helen Tupper: So, given one of the values of our business, Amazing If, is "useful", that is often the frame that we use for a lot of the things that we create.  And so, to make this episode even more useful for you, we have pulled together the insights, the ideas and the actions that we think are useful in the context of critical thinking, and we've put it into our PodSheet.  So, if you like this topic and you want to invest in this skill, download the PodSheet, which will summarise lots of what we've talked about, and it makes it easier for you to take action. You can always get the link to the PodSheet from the show notes, largely on Apple, I think is the easiest place to find it; but also it's on our website.  So, on amazingif.com, there's a podcast page, you just click on the relevant podcast and you'll always find the PodSheet.  You can download it and fill it out and use it with your team, so hopefully that will help you take what you've listened to from Sarah and me and put it into action in terms of your development.

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  We will be back next week with Social Influence, which I can't tell you much about yet, because I've not read the book yet!

Helen Tupper: What does that mean?!

Sarah Ellis: But I'm very much looking forward to talking about it and learning more about it.  Thank you all so much for listening, we're always so glad to have you with us, and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.